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It looks like competition is heating up in the space launch game.

This can only be a good thing for commercial payloads.

I really hope that the space agencies of the world can unite for the really important missions, that improve the knowledge of mankind as a whole.

For instance, it seems a waste that Red China is launching rockets, and are maybe at the stage that NASA was at just post Gemini (late 50s,early 60s, with orbital rendezvous, 2 astronauts etc), when we SHOULD be combining our effMore..orts, in order to expand the horizons of manned exploration. Im convinced that such unity will be necessary to even start thinking about Mars, let alone another Moon mission, or trip to an asteroid.

There are smarter people than me working on these things, but it seems like a no brainer that Mars could have been visited by now, using Shuttle to build the spaceship in orbit, with parts delivered by Soyuz, Energia or Arianne, or a combination of all the worlds launch systems.

The whole thing was already worked out, or concieved at least, by Von Braun in the 40s! Thats what the Shuttle was supposed to be FOR! The payload the shuttle could handle was such that Von Brauns original plan (its on google ofc xD) could have been achieved with 8 or so flights of the Shuttle alone!

I have never bought the excuse that they ended Apollo because the public wasnt interested anymore. Who cares abot people who would rather watch 'I love Lucy' reruns over a Moon mission? Why should THEY dictate what happens?

I really think a global effort in space would go a long way to showing the inhabitants of Earth just how precarious our situaton really is, and how foolish our squabbles over dwindling resources, religion and politics really are.Less..